Bounce Back, Return with Honor

Over the course of my professional career, I've worked alot with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That is, helping people heal emotionally from traumatic experiences. The long term effects of trauma on individuals is pretty well documented.

However, a researcher who has looked at prisoners of war from Vietnam and Korea discovered an interesting trend--Post Traumatic Health. While some POW's suffered delibitating effects from a result of their confinement, others, like Sam Johnson and John McCain reported having their lives transformed and priorities reordered profoundly by their experiences. They became better people for having survived their trauma.

Post Traumatic Health?

Returning POWs had two main mantras: Bounce Back! and Return With Honor. These mottos gave many of these men a focus and a purpose in their sufferings. It fired them with a goal; not just to survive, but to "endure well" the horrible things they went through.

Hmmm. Given the current state of the economy and the world, most parents fear that their children will be exposed to some traumatic experiences in their life time.

To this end, let's begin to focus a little more on helping them prepare to Bounce Back and a little less on having and being insulated. How do we do that?

Stay tuned!

Resilient Children

I've come to the conclusion that a shifting, uncertain world lies in our immediate future. If we are parents or youth leaders, we are charged with helping prepare children to handle that uncertainty with a set of appropriate skills. What are those skills, you ask?

That is what I'm currently researching. I'm trying to understand just what things they need to know to better negotiate a world with fewer known certainities.

The world is changing and rearranging at an increasing rate. We've watched, the last few weeks large financial institutions go away over night. Jobs vanish. Trends change weekly. Technology is only as good as the last new electronic toy.

And yet, we continue to have a need to connect, to trust and have faith in something. We need to have a certain set of values that do not shift with the wind.

So, how will today's children cope with a constantly morphing, endless changing environment of jobs and challenges? Traditionally, we learned to navigate the world around us based on learning the landscape and trusting it would be there tomorrow. Once we learned where to go and what to do, we simply kept following the pattern we'd learned.

Enter the Shifting Future.

Companies are learning that, in order to stay competitive, they need new products that will sell well for a while, then will need to have a "new and improved" model if they're going to stay ahead of their competition. While this has always been the case, the timeframe in which they need to have something "new" is closing faster and faster.

Most jobs our children will hold 15 years from now haven't even been invented yet. and they will do those jobs for a shorter period of time, resulting in a need to change companies and job desciptions more frequently. Many Generation Me'rs (today's twentysomethings) believe that all jobs are temporary, either because they'll be layed off or because they'll quickly move on if it doesn't meet their needs.

Unfortunately, today's children who will lack the ability to constantly see the need to change and move with the currents will find themselves "beatifully equipped to deal with world that no longer exists." (Eric Hoffer). The world will pass them by, leaving them ill fitted to compete.

So, we need to help children become more mobile, flexible and insightful to changing dynamics.

In all honesty, do today's texting, gaming idol-driven teens possess the skills to meet a challenge, work hard to adapt and stay above the fray? Or are they poised to be left behind and wonder why life is so hard. Will they be able to meet their needs or will they continue to stay at home, into their 30's, still trying to decide what to major in.

So, I'm looking for input, for your opinions. What tools and skill will kids need, in the future, in order to shift throught the shifting sands of life and be effective?

Thoughts?

It is 8:30 on Sunday morning. Church begins in 30 minutes. Jan finally has herself ready and the baby dressed. She is just sitting down to a quick breakfast when 10 year old Shawn wanders into the kitchen still dressed in his pajamas.

“Shawn,” Jan says, looking up, “hurry and get dressed. We need to leave in just a few minutes.”

“Not going,” mumbles Shawn.

Scenario #1:

“Shawn!” Jan yells, “you march right back to your bedroom and get into your Sunday clothes. I don’t have time for this right now.”

“But I don’t want to,” whines Shawn, his voice rising.

“Go!” says Jan firmly, pointing towards his room. “Unless you want to be grounded all week…”

Shawn stares, then slowly turns around and heads back to his room. A few minutes later, he comes back dressed without saying a word.

Scenario #2:

“OK,” says Jan, “you can choose if you go or not. But just remember that when you don’t go, you make Heavenly Father sad. When we don’t go to church we tell Him that we just don’t love Him anymore. I’d be really disappointed in you too because you know better. So think hard before you let everyone down like that.”

With that, Jan turns back to her breakfast. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Shawn hesitate, then turn and shuffle back to his room to get dressed.

Scenario #3

Jan put down her fork and put her arm around Shawn.

“Shawn, you’ve always liked going to church. What’s going on?”

Shawn stared down at the floor and didn’t say anything.

“Is something going on with your teacher or the other kids in your class?” prompted Jan.

After a moment of silence, Shawn finally admits that a couple of the deacons have been teasing him about his new glasses.


In each of these scenarios, mom is trying to help her son get to church. In each case, she makes it clear that attendance at church is important. In each case, though, her goal is the same but there are different approaches to accomplish the same thing. In the first scenario, Jan enforces obedience by threatening consequences; in the second, she uses guilt. In the third, however, she recognizes a change in Shawn’s behavior and wants to understand what’s changed.

To this point, we’ve outlined our goal of preventing future rebelliousness by helping children develop divine esteem or reliance on the spirit. We concluded that they are able to develop that reliance only when they have a correct understanding of their Heavenly Father. We also examined the importance of having a clear understanding of covenanted responsibilities.

Most children who rebel have been taught correct principles in the home and at church. They know they are supposed to keep the commandments. Many rebellions are not a rejection of the message as much as they are a rejection to our approach and our authority.

Welcome to the Frazzled Parent Blogger

Why a blog? Good question. In talking with parents and kids I find it helps to combine ideas of what works and what doesn't work. Because being a parent, trainer and mentor can be a frazzling process.



But, especially because you love your kids and family and want to get all the help you can.



So, again, Welcome! Check back early and often and bring questions and ideas with you.



Kevin